Rice Diversity and the Politics of Genetic Resources in Thailand.

Abstract

There could be no more appropriate time to revisit the issues of rice diversity and the politics of genetic resources in Thailand, as its farming and policy environments are transformed. In this transitional phase, much remains unknown about the direction of on-farm rice diversity and the outcome of rice genetic resource management policy, particularly with regard to equity and sustainability outcomes. In addressing these gaps in the literature, this dissertation presents three separate studies focusing on research themes: i) the dynamics of on-farm rice diversity, ii) the politics of scientific and indigenous knowledge, and iii) the management of rice genetic resources.

This dissertation employs a multi-sited ethnographical approach that covers research sites in farm villages, government and private plant research and development centers, and a non-government organization. This approach provides the three studies a comparative examination of various trajectories of changes, practices of scientific or indigenous knowledge inclusion, and effects of regulatory and policy advisory frameworks, respectively.

These three studies highlight the role of global discourses in shaping local practices and politics of genetic resource management. The interactions between global policy discourses, national policies and existing material structures and symbolic cultures at the local level lead to different trajectories in the dynamics of on-farm rice diversity and its management. The incorporation of scientific and indigenous knowledge can be viewed as a new political practice of knowledge formation and utilization. This new politics needs to be re-conceptualized as global politics of scientific and indigenous knowledge that is situated in local politics of genetic resources. Changes in plant genetic resource management policies have inadvertently diverted local practices away from sustainability and equity. Such divergence in local conservation and development practices is due to the re-situation of local institutional processes within new global and national political spaces, not just the result of institutional incompatibility or political resistance. The dissertation’s findings suggest a need for better integration of theoretical insights into policy interventions so as to take into account possible interactions between a) material and symbolic structures and b) local and extra-local processes that determine on-farm rice diversity and the politics of genetic resources.